Students at the University of Minnesota-Crookston are attending one of the best public regional liberal arts colleges in the Midwest, according to U.S. News and World Report.
For the past two years, Crookston has achieved the title of third best public college in the Midwest. This year, it ranked number two.
“We’re finally getting some recognition,” said Andrew Svec, director of communications at Crookston.
Crookston, known for its technology program, won its seat as second best partly because of the notebook computers it gives to each of its 1,200 full-time students.
The computers allow all of the college’s classrooms to have Internet access, with all seats hooked up to the Internet in 80 percent of the rooms.
Other reasons for the college’s reputation are that 35 percent of its classes have less than 20 students. Only 2 percent of the classes have more than 50 students enrolled.
Crookston’s relatively low graduation rate of 34 percent held the college back from ranking higher among the other 428 similar colleges. Southwest State University in Marshall, Minn., won the top ranking.
The U.S. News and World Report issue on the best colleges is scheduled for release Sept. 11.

Tess Langfus welcomes comments at [email protected].